And Now... A Walk In The Black Forest!

Cue the music...

It has taken me a while to get back to my rebasing project and this time it's The Army of Forest Folk. The reason for taking so long is not that this was a difficult task but the fact that I've lost a huge amount of enthusiasm for wargaming. I no longer have a club that I like to attend and, as a result, I have no real need to create vast armies. Having said that I will start playing solo games as soon as the weather cools down and the heat in my upstairs hobby room becomes tolerable.

This is an unusual army and it's made up of figures from all over which I'll detail as we go. The army is very colourful and looks spectacular in the flesh. It has a lot of light troops in the form of fauns and centaurs. But it also has a tough core of Tree-Folk and some other big hitting creatures. I don't know how effective it will be in battle but they look impressive.

Okay... Starting on the left in the centaur cavalry. This wing is made up of light skirmisher riders and heavy rider cavalry. Although, as heavy cavalry they lack armour, I thought that being half horse, centaurs would have a better, natural, agility than riders and this could account for their prowess as "mounted" warriors. I added a unicorn as a champion/hero but I think I'll change that and try to find a better option.

The centaurs are from Eureka Miniatures. I modified a few of these sculpts for Eureka a few years back in order to expand the range. I can't remember which ones except for the king with the laurel crown. The unicorn is a Reaper Bones figure. I have two bases of mounted skirmish archers and three bases of heavy riders lead by the centaur king.

Here's the first of the big hitters - A mountain troll. He's big and if you look at the photo above you see how he towers over the centaurs.  I like this figure. He looks tough and grumpy.

I'm a bit confused as to the generalship of this army. I've included a troll as the army commander here, but I think this will change and he'll become a champion or maybe another big-hitter troll. Same with Luna the Moon Ogress. I was going to use her as the army's spell caster but I think I found a better option after I finished taking the pics. I have another army that I think she would be better suited to. The troll is from Reaper Bones and the ogress is another from Eureka Miniatures.

The Treefolk ~ These make up the heavy infantry core of the army. They are made up of GW Dryads, and Treekin from Mantic's, Kings of War range. Both sets of figures are fantastic. The dryads are one GW's best kits as far as I'm concerned. I saw a painting tutorial on youtube on how to paint the dryads to resemble Japanese cherry blossoms. I liked it; so that's what I did. The dryads will be heavy warriors with some traits to toughen them up. The treekin will be an elite type of unit so I want them to be very tough.

And then there's this guy, Greennuts the Ent. I sculpted this figure years ago when I had my own miniature business. I sold a few of him around the world but this is the original. He's made of several parts and towers over every other model on the table. I made another of these about 20 years back and I'll add a pic below if I can find one. The Treekin are spectacular models. I should get another set of them.

Here's another of my favourite models: The Jabberwock! It's another Reaper Bones figure and I think it looks fantastic. This was a difficult figure to do and it required special treatment (click here to see what was needed to put this figure together). Okay... now that I've said all that, I might remove this figure from this army. I think it fits well but I now have a better idea of where it will fit in even better.

The right wing is made up of fauns (satyrs). These units are all light infantry. The archers are obviously skirmish troops but the spearmen are going to be light infantry with good melee capability. There are six bases of each and they're produced by Eureka Miniatures. Once again I modified a few of these figures for Eureka several years back to help expand the range. 

This figure below is a Reaper miniature and, after taking these pics and having a rethink I believe that this figure would make a better general than the troll. I think what I'll do is; I'll make up a sabot base with a standard bearer and a musician and insert him onto the base like I did with my Elf King. He just looks so much more commanding than the troll. The troll can replace the Jabberwock

Three champions: The Faun commander, A beast headed warrior and the would-be new king/general, (And yes that is what you think it is on the faun commander ~ Be careful or he'll have your eye out!).

Two views: Right to left and left to right.

A top down view to show how the army fits on to a 6x4 table. They make quite a footprint although there are a lot of light troops and not many heavy warriors. The idea is to make the tree folk very tough and hope that the lighter flanks are capable of harassing, slowing and reducing the enemy by evading and attacking on their own terms. I don't know if this will work.

After taking the photos I remembered this figure and thought: "Oh yes. She's supposed to be the spell caster." So she might end up replacing Luna a Moon Ogress. Or maybe not.

As promised above: here are some pics of the original treeman I sculpted about 20 odd years back for my Warhammer Wood Elves. I sold the army and have regretted it ever since. I never played Warhammer but I use to like creating WH armies and painting the figures. I built several of them and sold them all. (Wish I hadn't)

A Few Trees More...

In my last post you saw my temporary detour into the realms of Fantasy. However, as I was setting up the photos I came across a couple of figures that I'd forgotten about (it's more likely, I deliberately tried to forget about them). These figures are a some tree-man things. They are made by Mantic but I'm not sure what they're called. I'm calling them: Tree-kin.

What happened with these is that I saw them online and I though they looked great. So I ordered them and when they arrived they were a pain in the butt to put together because they needed pinning and stuff. So I thought: Bugger them! And I put them back in their box and forgot about them. But I found them again last week and after having another look at them they started to make sense, so I put them together and, as you can see, I got to painting them.

They really are great figures and once I started doing them I really got into it and tried to make them look as nice as they really deserved. They are pretty hefty lumps of metal and they'll look great with the rest of my woodland Faerie Army. I'm even beginning to think that with these, my big ent/treeman and the dryads, I could almost make an all tree based army. I do have a few other things I could add to them such as giant worms, giant beetles etc... 

Also, here's a photo with a regular 28mm gentleman to give you an idea of their size. This little chap is the Spanish Governor; Don h'Emmingo, my pirate gaming alter ego from several years back. 

Don h'Emmingo at one of our Pirate Mega Games (sans moustache!)

The Spanish Port to my left and the Kraken emerging from the depths to my right.

An Unexpected Fantasy Detour

I've had a long stretch of painting historical stuff and after recently painting the first battalion for a new Napoleonic Prussian regiment I decided to give myself a break and paint something that was less demanding. I had a bunch of Eureka Miniatures centaurs, satyrs/fauns based and undercoated so I chose to give them a coat of paint and get them off the painting table. This lead me to reviewing my Army of Faerie to see just what I had stashed away.

This little army, which I started a few years back has quietly grown and become a reasonable sized force. It is very colourful and has a fair few unusual models and figures that don't really fit anywhere else in my collection. This army isn't build for any particular set of rules. They just exist.

These are about half of the fauns that I painted. The other lot are armed with spears (but I didn't take any pics of them). I also added the unicorn. I only bought this figure a two days back but it was such an easy thing to paint that I pretty much did it in one night. After all... What self respecting faerie army doesn't have a unicorn. It's a reaper bones figure.

I also painted this figure. It is a Vulture Legion rider that I sculpted for Eureka Miniatures a few years back for their Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon range. I don't think this figure has ever been released and, as far as I know, this is the only one that has ever been painted.

In the Moorcock books the Vulture Legion are Muscovite mercenaries from the Russian Steppe. When I sculpted them I envisioned them as sort of fantasy/Sci-fi landsknecht. When it came time to make some cavalry I decided to make them a weird mix of Cossacks and Polish winged lancers (with vulture wings).

Here he is with a few hounds from the Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish box.

Anyway, all this fantasy painting and I decided to put my Army of Faerie on parade.

As you can see what started as a little army has grown to a pretty decent size with plenty of weird and unusual models. They come from a variety of manufacturers which, I'm sure you'll recognize. The largest contingents come from Eureka - That's all of the fauns/satyrs, centaurs, sprites as well as some of the other weird critters.

Below are the Firvulag. If you've ever read The Many Coloured Land by Julian May, you'll have heard of these folk. In fact, it was after reading the series again that prompted my to start making this army. The sword sprites at the front are from Eureka as are some of the figures mixed in with the Northstar goblins. The big blue moon faced ogress and the big head guy on the barrel are also from Eureka.

These are the main infantry and cavalry elements. Faun spears, clubbers and skirmisher archers. Centaur spears and archers. The ogre below is a Reaper Bones figure.

The dryads are pretty recognisable from GW. In my opinion these are some of GW's best figures. They look truly nasty and formidable. I painted them up in a cherry blossom paint scheme (see below for an older photo). The treeman; I made him myself when I was operation my own miniatures company. I was casting him in resin but I still had the original pieces in a box so I decided to put him together when I started this army.

These are my generals. Thefigure in the center is called King of the Forest (I think) and is Reaper Bones. The fairy... I don't know. I had the figure for years before painting it. The goat headed champion is Reaper Bones. The faun with the big horns is Eureka.

Another shot of the Furvulag regiment. After taking these pics I realised that I left some of them in their box (it's a shame but I'm not going take any more pics for now).

The big guys in the centre are all Reaper Bones. A swamp troll, a hill troll and the jabberwock. The jabberwock is a great looking miniature but it was a real pain to make it stand up. It has long skinny legs that need to hold up a fair bit of torso, tail, head and wings. I had to do a fair bit of drilling and bracing to make it capable of standing on its own two feet.

And here's a few older photos to show some of the detail of some of the figures: